Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1887-02-25
A DEFENSE OF THE sLIcKENs BILL

A DEFENSE OF THE SLICKENS BILL.
A Mr.. Cox, in the San Francisco Bul-
lctin, advances lengthy defense for the
bill to legalize hydraulic mining methods,
declared by the Courts and Congress to be
unlawful, dangerous and destructive to
agriculture and river navigation. He
charges that the State is prosecuting the
miners, but in what way, he does not ex-
plain. We are unaware of any action by
the State in the matter at all. The diff
Guilty has been the neglect of the State.
Mr.. Cox argues that the mining grounds to
be worked under the bill are, because Of
high altitude, worthless for any other pur-
pose than to be washed down. The alb
Gurdity of this assertion is apparent, when
It is recalled that in Nevada county pears,
apples and hardy fruits are grown for the
market, and that the locality is admirably
adapted to such industry; that viticulture
and horticulture are prosecuted with sue
cess in the very heart of the most extern
sive hydraulic mining regions, and many
of these mines are scarcely above the foot
hill citrus belt He holds that engineers
of repute uniformly agree that the proposed
dams may be constructed with success, and
so as to constitute no menace to valley in
terests. While this is not true, yet, if
admitted, it is simply an opinion, for the
problem is an unsolved one-one which
engineering science has not before encoun-
tered, and there are neither in Europe nor
America any parallels to the scheme here
proposed. Even if it be admitted that
perfectly secure dams can be built, which
we do not believe can be done, Mr. Cox
will not find security or guarantee in the
bill that they wiU be thus put up, or that
they will be maintained if built-in short,
he will be unable to show that any risk is
or can be taken by any one except those
below the dams. while the bill itself is so
framed that the possibility is foreshadowed
of the care and maintenance of the dams
being made chargeable upon the State.
He argues that if mining has been prose
cuted without dams for thirty years, two
years more with dams will not be dan
gerous experiment. This is begging the
question. For many years the people of
the valley have been devoting their
means, time and energies to restricting
the destructive process of hydraulic min
ing, and having now the warrant Of the
Common law, as interpreted by the Courts,
and the authority of the Federal Govern
ment, announced by its Congress, for their
course, they are called upon to abandon
all they have gained for the hazard of an
experiment Had Mr.. Cox correctly
stated his syllogism, it would be less OBJ
iectionable, for if hydraulic mining had
been prosecuted for thirty years without
dams. or injury to'lands below or the nav
liability of rivers, the "triaP' of two
years with dams would present itself in q
very different light. As the case stands,
the proposition is one that challenges the
sincerity of the people of the valley dur
ing all the long and trying period in
whichthey have been invoking the law to
the salvation of their homes from the de-
scending debris. Mr. Cox objects to the
hydraulic miners being denounced as out
laws and yandals. 1t is well taken. No
one in the valley feels hatred for miners !;
regret and sympathy are stronger elements
in the sentiment they entertain about
hydraulic mining; vested rights they add
nit the hydraulic miners have. but none
superior to those Of the people Of the
valley, or to Justify the exercise of such
rights to the overthrow Of those of low
land jewellers. We have yet TO hear Of
the existence OF any miner who claims a
vested right to deposit the tailings of his
mining ground upon his miner neighbor's
lands, either in the form of sand
cobbes, gravel or sliciens. The same
rule that the miners recognize for
their own section, the people of the valley
invoke against them. If miners may not
cover each other up, what vested right
gives them license to bury valley lands ?
There are no other points made by Mr.
Cox that have not been repeatedly re-
viewed and answered. The old plea of
:" the process Of nature and the charge
that the damage done thus far has resulted
from the old placer deposits, are familiar
to the people and cut no figure in the pres
emit debate upon the bill that proposes to
supplement the "erosive process of nature ,
by the work of man, according TO methods
natural action of the elements accom-
plishes IN an age. Mr.. Cox wholly fails to
comprehend the feelings of the people of
the valley upon this question. 1t is in
tense, because the bill mcnaces their prop
erty values, threatens TO place upon prop
erty here new risks, TO fasten upon indus
try new hobbies and to reopen question
that the Courts have closed. 1t is signifi-
cant that Mr. Cox in his imprisoned essay
should omit all reference to the permission
the bill gives to let "supensory matteri'
pass over the dams, and TO exempt the
dam-builders from all injury resulting
from the deposition of such matter-and
which is precisely the deposit that has
wrought seven-tenths of all injury that
has been done. 1t is equally significant
that he attempts to frighten the drift and
quartz miners, and excite them with the
fear that they will he next enjoined-a
thing no one ever has contemplated, and
tina; viii not come about. The quartz and
drift miners perfectly understand that to
their processes the valley people have not
raised objection, and will not, since there
is no known basis for it, and because the
people of the low lands not only wish no
harm to mining communities, but believe
that drifting, among other things may be